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The shooting set of the film ‘Captain Saab’ has been built in Tinkune, Kathmandu, to depict the city as it looked in the 19th century. The production team has recreated the architecture of that era, with the set featuring identical, old-style white attached houses.

“We cannot build dozens of new concrete houses in the busy city of Kathmandu. That’s why we’ve colored and modified the existing ones to achieve the desired effect,” said director Dipendra K Khanal. “We’ve also designed the costumes to match the period.”

The set includes vintage white houses, old vehicles on the streets, Newar community members trading using kharpan and doko, and costumes that reflect the fashion of the time. “Our goal is to authentically portray the era we’re representing,” said Khanal. “We’re doing our best within the limits of our budget and capabilities, which is why we’re focusing on set design.”

The filming of Captain Saab began on July 26. In addition to Kathmandu, shooting will take place in Dhumkharka, Bethanchowk, Chitwan, and Birgunj in Kavre district. The film, directed by Khanal, is a biopic of Capt Rameshwar Thapa, a helicopter pilot, businessman, and media entrepreneur.

Presented by Screenplay Production, Yarsa Studio, and Rich Entertainment, the film stars Khagendra Lamichhane, Suraksha Pant, and Sanjog Rasaili in the lead roles. It is produced by Khanal, Karan Shrestha, and Shrishtima Khanal, with Srijana Napit serving as executive producer.

The screenplay is written by director Khanal and the film is co-directed by Krishna Bahadur Thapa. Saugat Basnet is the chief assistant director. Royal Bhimsen (Trident Concept) is responsible for poster and publicity design, while Aki Thekpa Production Desire, Rohit Raj Gautam, and Bishnu Budhathoki serve as production managers.

Annapurna journo Bishnu Thapa has launched his latest book ‘Kheladi: Sangharsha Dekhi Safalatasamma’, which chronicles the journeys of Nepali athletes. The book was officially unveiled on Friday at a ceremony in Kathmandu by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Urban Development, Prakash Man Singh.

Speaking at the launch, Singh emphasized that sports are an essential indicator of a nation’s prosperity. He remarked that the book would not only serve as a source of inspiration for future generations but also as an important documentation of Nepali sports history.

Member-Secretary of the National Sports Council, Tanka Lal Ghising, praised the book for filling a gap in sports documentation. “Although stories about athletes appear in the media, they rarely get compiled into books. This book will inspire many others to write similar works,” he said, stressing the need to continue writing about athletes’ struggles and triumphs.

Author Thapa shared that the book captures the journeys of nearly five dozen athletes who have seen both ups and downs in their careers and brought recognition to Nepal at national and international levels. He said the material is based on his decades-long journalistic work, starting from Punarjagaran Weekly and spanning multiple publications over the years.

The book covers stories from Jit Bahadur KC, who earned Nepal’s first medal, to Palesa Goverdhan, who made history by winning a bronze medal at the Paris 2024 Paralympics. “I felt that the sacrifices, dedication, struggles, and successes of both veteran and young athletes should not just remain on newspaper pages—they deserve to be preserved as historical documents,” sports journalist Thapa said. He added, “This book will not just serve as a record for future generations but also motivate aspiring individuals to pursue a career in sports. We must now move beyond just writing stories—we must also archive them in book form.”

Alright, buckle up because out of all the wild science headlines this decade, nothing’s got people buzzing like this. Scientists are genuinely trying to bring back the woolly mammoth. Not in a “run for your life, T. rex on the loose” kind of way, but as a legit plan to tackle climate change. Sounds like science fiction, right? But gene-editing nerds are already in the lab, mixing DNA like it’s a high-stakes cocktail party. Which begs the question: Just because we can play Dr Frankenstein with extinct creatures, does that mean we actually should?

How are they pulling this off? Here’s the deal. Nobody’s pulling a frozen mammoth out of the ice and zapping it back to life. Instead, the plan is to grab some DNA from those long-dead shaggy beasts and mash it together with Asian elephant DNA, the mammoth’s closest living cousin. What do you get? Basically a cold-resistant elephant-mammoth mix that’s supposed to be right at home in Siberia’s freezing tundra.

A startup with the Hollywood-ready name Colossal Biosciences is leading the charge, and Harvard’s George Church is the ringmaster. Their pitch is simple. Let these mammoth-like creatures loose in the tundra, and they’ll stomp around, restore grasslands, trap carbon, and maybe slow down global warming. It’s not just a nostalgia trip for Ice Age fans. It’s eco-engineering on steroids.

Sounds epic, but let’s pump the brakes. Playing God with extinct animals comes with a truckload of headaches. What if the mammoth-elephant hybrids end up suffering in ways we can’t predict? Or what if they break out of their “controlled” parks and start trashing today’s ecosystems? And here’s a big question. Should we really be tossing millions at resurrecting the dead when actual endangered animals like rhinos and tigers are disappearing right now?

Some folks say we’re just making pricey sideshows for rich people’s zoos. Others believe science could help us save animals teetering on the edge today. Depends on who you ask.

Alright, so Nepal’s not exactly in the running for best habitat for mammoths. But don’t tune out yet. This gene-editing tech could totally shake up conservation in the Himalayas too. Imagine using it to bring back lost mountain plants or even strengthen snow leopards so they don’t get wiped out by new diseases.

Dr Neelam Thakur at Bir Hospital says Nepal should keep a close eye on all this. “We might not be leading the charge in de-extinction, but these techniques could help our own species hang on,” she says. The catch is Nepal has almost no rules for this stuff. If we just jump in, it’s basically an ethical free-for-all.

De-extinction shouldn’t be a free-for-all where anyone with a gene gun can play mad scientist. If we’re going to do this, we need real rules, ecological studies, and public debate, not just billionaires chasing headlines and viral videos.

For Nepal, the takeaway is simple. Put money into genetic research that helps the wildlife we have now. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves dreaming about reviving the ghosts of the past.

Woolly mammoth comebacks aren’t science fiction anymore. They’re in the works. The big question isn’t “Can we pull it off?” It’s “Will this actually make the world better, or is it just a weird flex?” If we play it smart, de-extinction could be one more tool to heal broken ecosystems. But saving what’s still alive should be the priority, for Nepal and everywhere else. Because once species are gone, bringing them back is a lot harder than protecting them in the first place.

Prakash Khadka

Kathmandu Model College, Bagbazar

When Covid-19 reached Nepal in early 2020, everything came to a halt. The once-bustling streets of Kathmandu fell silent. In the villages, an even deeper stillness took hold. Families stopped hearing from loved ones working abroad. Schools closed. Health centers ran out of medicine. People felt completely alone.

For many, the hardship went far beyond staying indoors. The virus made it hard to breathe, but so did poverty and fear. Countless families lost their sole breadwinner. That meant no food, no school, and no hope. Nepal didn’t just get sick. It broke. And the weight of that breaking felt insurmountable.

But what if the crisis that brought Nepal to its knees wasn’t the final chapter, but the necessary prologue to a national reinvention?

Forget “recovery.” Recovery suggests a return to the same fragile system that collapsed at the first tremor. The pandemic wasn’t just a tragedy to repair; it was a revelation. A siren call to abandon broken blueprints and design an economy that actually works. What if the architecture of our collapse could become the model for our rebirth?

Before Covid-19, Nepal was celebrated for its “remittance economy.” We sent our youth abroad, and their earnings helped sustain the nation. But we ignored the true cost. Villages emptied out. Land was abandoned. Families were split across continents. A national identity was built on the loneliness of video calls.

Then the borders closed, remittances collapsed, and the illusion vanished. What we thought was a safety net turned out to be a tightrope—and Covid-19 cut the line.

Tourism, once touted as a cornerstone of our GDP, proved just as fragile. When it collapsed, it left behind shuttered hotels, unemployed guides, and debt-ridden businesses. We had relied too heavily and planned too little.

And what about the informal sector, the backbone for over 70 percent of our workforce? It was always a blind spot we chose to ignore. When lockdowns hit, 1.6 million jobs vanished overnight. No contracts. No insurance. No savings. Just millions rendered invisible by a system that never acknowledged them.

Education failed, too. Many schools turned to online learning—but what about children in villages without internet, electricity, or smartphones? Around 95,000 children, mostly girls, dropped out and never returned. Some were forced into child labor or early marriage. This wasn’t an unforeseen consequence. It exposed a long-standing failure to support the most marginalized.

None of these problems were new. The pandemic simply made them impossible to ignore. It held up a mirror to a system already cracked. And even amid the pain, it gave us something else—a rare chance to build something better.

So what if we stopped exporting our youth and started investing in them at home? What if empty villages became hubs of tea, coffee, and herb production? What if young people were trained to use digital tools to sell their own products?

Imagine if every village had a solar-powered tech center, where children could access online learning, patients could consult doctors remotely, and local businesses could connect with global markets. This is not a fantasy. Nepal has smart, capable young people. Instead of waiting for foreign help, let’s back their ideas.

The government can create youth innovation funds to support small-scale projects in farming, green energy, recycling, and technology. Trust the youth. They understand the problems because they live them. Their solutions are rooted in reality, not written in distant reports.

This isn’t utopian thinking. It’s a survival strategy. Look at our neighbors. Sri Lanka’s economic collapse was built on the same foundations of debt and import dependency. Bangladesh is now facing a foreign reserve crisis. These are not distant warnings; they are potential previews of Nepal’s own future if we try to return to “normal.”

After Covid-19, poverty in Nepal surged again, with rural areas hit hardest. In some regions, one doctor serves thousands. That’s not just unfair, it’s unsustainable. An economy built on foreign labor, foreign remittances, and foreign tourists is neither strong nor safe.

If we go back to the old system, we’re not recovering—we’re refusing to learn. We’re choosing to leave millions behind.

Covid-19 taught us the unimaginable can happen overnight. In just a week, the global systems we depended on were unplugged. That’s terrifying, but also liberating. It showed us that the structures we thought were permanent are, in fact, fragile.

So why rebuild the same system that failed us? The wreckage is all around us. It’s time to stop mourning what we lost and start building what we need. It’s time to turn the memory of our greatest crisis into the blueprint for our greatest awakening.

Let’s not waste this chance. Let’s turn this crisis into a new beginning. We have seen the problems. Now we must build the solutions. Nepal deserves an economy that works for everyone. It’s time to stop waiting, and start building.

Himal Subedi 

Narayani English Public Secondary School, Bharatpur, Chitwan

At least 54 migrants have died and many remain missing after a boat carrying about 150 people sank off Yemen’s coast on Sunday due to rough seas.

Most of the victims were Ethiopian, mainly from the Oromo community, trying to reach Yemen’s Abyan province. Local authorities have launched a recovery operation, with bodies found along several beaches, Firstpost reported.

Despite years of conflict, Yemen remains a key transit route for migrants from the Horn of Africa heading to Gulf countries. Many face abuse and exploitation along the way, according to the UN.

The UK government is preparing to evacuate seriously injured children from Gaza for urgent medical care, with plans expected to begin within weeks. Up to 300 children may be brought to the UK, each accompanied by a parent or guardian, following security checks, according to BBC.

The move follows criticism over delays and growing calls for action amid Gaza’s deepening humanitarian crisis.

Some children have already arrived in the UK through the efforts of Project Pure Hope, a British medical charity, which welcomed the government’s plan and offered support based on its experience.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said efforts are being accelerated to provide lifesaving care as Gaza’s health system collapses under ongoing conflict, BBC reported.

Pakistan and Iran have signed agreements to raise bilateral trade to $10bn and strengthen cooperation on regional security and counterterrorism, according to Firstpost.

The deals were signed during Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s two-day visit to Pakistan. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif reaffirmed support for Iran’s peaceful nuclear rights and condemned recent Israeli aggression backed by the US.

Pezeshkian voiced confidence in quickly reaching the trade goal, while both leaders stressed the need for peace and prosperity in the region.

Analysts say formalising existing informal trade could open a potential route linking Pakistan to Europe, Firstpost reported.

Armed Druze groups have attacked Syrian security forces in Suwayda, killing at least one soldier and wounding others, Al Jazeera reported. Several villages were also shelled, violating a recently agreed ceasefire.

The Syrian government accused local rebel groups of inciting violence and targeting its forces. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said four people were killed, including three soldiers.

Fighting between Druze factions and Bedouin tribes erupted last month, displacing hundreds. A US-brokered truce had briefly calmed the unrest, but tensions have resurfaced. An investigation has been launched, according to Al Jazeera.